


the father

by arataka



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst?, Character Study, Episode: s02e08 The Mandalorian, Gen, Good Parent Din Djarin, MAYBE canon non compliant, Not Beta Read, i kinda cried writing this :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28163325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arataka/pseuds/arataka
Summary: din (mistakably) thinks that there are requirements to being a father. greef karga, certified father of two (maybe three), says that love is more than enough.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Greef Karga, Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 7
Kudos: 228





	the father

**Author's Note:**

> chapter 16 broke me. kinda. maybe. a lot. spoilers for chapter 15 as well but i hope that if you watched 16 then you watched 15. 
> 
> thanks for reading. i hope you enjoy. ^___^

Greef Karga is a father.

He is a father before he is Nevarro’s magistrate. Back when he was the most lucrative way of getting bounty pucks from the guild in Nevarro, he was still a father before being a walking stack of credits.

He’s seen his children once. One daughter, one son. Din caught a glimpse of them in the same classroom they left the child in; their eyes had some sort of glint to them, something Din can’t quite put his finger on— until he stares at their father across the table.

Confidence. Charisma. He did not know that such traits could be inherited. Maybe it was a trick of the light.

“Your kids seem nice,” Din says, gloves wrapping around the mug of hot… _whatever-it-is,_ persistently ordered by Karga even though Din does not drink unless alone, and by then the liquid will have turned cold. He was not expecting the drink until the waitress slid it in his direction, and didn’t even catch what the name of it was— he makes a mental note to toss it out later, down the toilet and into the vacuum of space when he is back home.

Karga sips his own drink. It is cold, possibly to counteract his warm personality— now Din scoffs under the helmet, entertaining the thought of him ordering a hot drink under the same reasoning. “Your kid is great, too.” 

_“My_ kid?”

“Yes,” another sip, “That Armorer person said that he is your kid, didn’t she?”

Right. The child is his kid. His child. His… son. 

Weird.

He shuffles in his seat. The beskar is uncomfortable under his ass all of a sudden. “Yeah.” 

Why is that weird?

“You said he was fifty— it’s hilarious that we dropped him in grade school.” Greef Karga slaps the tabletop between them two times as he laughs, his head tilting backwards from the sheer boom of his laughter. “How old are you, again?”

It’s hilarious that he has to count. He has to visualize his calendar hanging somewhere near his bunk on the _Razor Crest—_ outdated by a year or two, but he supposes that almost any age would work for Karga’s inevitable joke. “Thirty-three,” he guesses. 

The booming laugh is back. “A father _younger_ than his own son! He’s not much taller than that helmet of yours and he’s two decades older!” 

He takes pity (on who he takes pity on, he does not ask) and lets out his own laugh— only one. It is more of a scoff than a laugh, barely buzzing through the helmet’s voice modulator. Yes, he supposes it is funny, the way that a relationship between father and son is absolutely nothing like what he imagines of a father and son. 

Greef Karga is older than his children, he is warm, caring, and never allows his children into danger.

 _He_ is caring. He likes to imagine that he is caring. Beskar is rarely warm. 

“A father...” the cup is suddenly so _very_ interesting, he thinks, as the helmet tilts downwards as though Karga could see his shyness through the armor, “That is what’s hilarious.”

“You do not think you’re a father?

“I do not _feel_ like a father,” Din confesses, “I feed him, I protect him— but that’s what good men do. Fathers are something more than that.” 

It does not help that he himself lost his father when he was very young, the warmth of his touch lost on him and the warmth his laughter brings to Din’s heart now long gone. The covert who took him in afterwards were not so much family but classmates, teachers, or perhaps a number of links in a chain; Din does not teach the child anything more the color red and how many blaster fires it takes to fell a Stormtrooper. (One.) 

The closest he has to a father is sitting before him, but even then he feels disattached— he does not have the confident eyes the children inherited. Instead they are melancholy when he stares at himself for a few fleeting moments in the mirror, muttering something about it being a result of lack of sleep before putting his helmet on and pushing the sight to the back of his mind until the next morning, when the cycle repeats. Greef Karga is a father to him in a way where he welcomes him to Nevarro with open arms, hands him a small stack of bounty pucks as if they were Din’s weekly allowance. 

(Yes, Greef Karga _might’ve_ attempted to kill him at least thrice within the past year, but who hasn’t? Let bygones be bygones, Karga says.) 

“But there is no requirement to be a father further than that, Mando,” Another reason he is like a father— he does not say his name. Most fathers say their children’s names but when it comes to Din, saying his name aloud could spell death; after Moff Gideon said it so proudly months ago, the name has never left Karga’s lips. “If you love him, isn’t that enough? Isn’t fighting tooth and nail for his life more than enough?”

Moff Gideon fights for him too, Din thinks. But Moff Gideon wants the child for some reason so complicated, something about M-counts and blood samples and experiments. He wants the child because the thought of him in _any_ dangerous situation _including_ whatever the Imperial remnants want to do with him is so infuriating for Maker knows why. 

Love is a good way to put it. And if love is what makes him a father under Karga’s standards, then he supposes the child is his son as well. 

  
  
  


If someone were to ask him about his duties in life, Din would always say he is a Mandalorian first, then a Mandalorian second. 

But then the child is taken— and Mayfeld cannot waltz into the officer’s mess in the Imperial remnant hall because he is so afraid of being _seen_ and being _recognized_ while he himself is so terrified by the thought of being _known—_ and the little scanner scans his face and inputs it into its data system for the rest of eternity. 

There are two rules in the creed, amidst the many beside it:

  1. Protect the foundlings.
  2. Do not take off your helmet in front of others. 



If he fails to take off his helmet, the child— a foundling, _his foundling—_ is lost forever. If he takes off his helmet, his son is protected. Either way he loses, either way he wins. 

To him, it cancels out. He’ll think up an argument against the Armorer later.

  
  
  


But when this _Jedi_ is here before him, minutes after he finally gets to hold his son again, he stops. 

It is decided by creed that the child should go. This is his mission, and until said mission was completed, Din is the child’s father. The three stubby fingers tug on the leather of his boot, hiding behind his leg because here they are with their goal, yet too afraid to reach it. 

“He wants your permission,” the Jedi says. He nods towards his son still behind Din’s boot, clutching onto it for dear life. 

He remembers, back when they met Ahsoka Tano and _“the kid”_ became _Grogu,_ Ahsoka’s warning. He is too afraid, she said. He has grown attached to you and that fear is dangerous, she frowned. 

Now, Din looks down at Grogu’s eyes. They are melancholy, glistening from the light his beskar reflects. Who is the one attached now? Or, Maker forbid, is it both of them?

Grogu is light in his hands. Oh did he miss this.

He will miss this.

“Don’t be afraid,” he tells himself. Without him, Grogu will be fine. Without him, Din will be fine. Yes. He believes that. He wants to believe that with his entire being.

But Grogu’s small little hand reaches out for him, resting in the angle of his helmet. He nods before brushing his hand across his as he reaches for the underneath— if there is one thing he owes his son, it is to see his face, even if only once.

Grogu’s eyes light up when he stares back at him. He holds his cheek so gently and Din closes his eyes to memorize the feeling. Removing your helmet in front of others is breaking the creed, because Grogu is not in danger anymore. His heart beats faster at the thought of the Armorer chastising him and saying that he must never wear the helmet again, or maybe she’ll fight him to the death and Din thinks it’ll all be worth it, if he could allow his son such a fleeting privilege.

When he opens his eyes, Grogu is still happy. His hands wander around Din’s face, memorizing the sight and the touch and the way Din smiles under his fingers as he ruffles his unruly hair. 

“I’ll visit you,” Din assures. “I promise.”

Grogu nods. And smiles. And brings his short little fingers through his hair for the tenth time, and likely the last time.

“I love you, my son.” 


End file.
